Well, as you guys probably can figure out at this point, I’m not a
fan of the frontrunners of both major parties in the election. However,
I’ve been hearing over the last few days Gary Johnson of the
libertarian party is actually getting up to 10% of the vote in several
polls. While I am happy to see a third party candidate get such good
support, I am not very happy that it is Gary Johnson and the libertarian
party are the ones who have reached this kind of success.
His platform
I’m gonna be honest, I do see some stuff I like here. The guy respects a woman’s right to choose. He wants to end the war on drugs. He wants a less interventionist foreign policy. He wants to keep the internet free and open. I largely agree with a lot of these things. And to be honest, this guy isn’t such a hardcore philosophical libertarian that I’m freaked out and turned off. However, my main issue this election is economics. We need to have some serious intervention in this economy, and all the libertarian party offers on economics is an extreme version of small government conservatism. No, we don’t need lower taxes. No, we don’t need cut government spending to an insane degree. No, the market isn’t gonna regulate itself on the environment. We need to expand the safety net, even if it means raising taxes to pay for it, and we regulations on the economy. I discussed my economic ideas elsewhere. I’m sure you guys know how this radically diverges from right libertarianism.
Conclusion
Honestly, it’s a shame this guy isn’t a lefty on economics. I’d be hard pressed to find anything wrong with his platform if he were a progressive. He has a solid social and foreign policy platform, but his economics are antithetical to my own values. Since economics is my big issue this election, I can’t vote for him. If this were 2008 and I had the values I did then, he would be an easy shoe in, but I can’t really give up on my progressive ideals here. He looks like a MASSIVE improvement over Trump and the rest of the Republican party, but I can’t support him over the democrats or the greens or other left wing parties. Not when we are polar opposites on my number one issue.
His platform
I’m gonna be honest, I do see some stuff I like here. The guy respects a woman’s right to choose. He wants to end the war on drugs. He wants a less interventionist foreign policy. He wants to keep the internet free and open. I largely agree with a lot of these things. And to be honest, this guy isn’t such a hardcore philosophical libertarian that I’m freaked out and turned off. However, my main issue this election is economics. We need to have some serious intervention in this economy, and all the libertarian party offers on economics is an extreme version of small government conservatism. No, we don’t need lower taxes. No, we don’t need cut government spending to an insane degree. No, the market isn’t gonna regulate itself on the environment. We need to expand the safety net, even if it means raising taxes to pay for it, and we regulations on the economy. I discussed my economic ideas elsewhere. I’m sure you guys know how this radically diverges from right libertarianism.
Conclusion
Honestly, it’s a shame this guy isn’t a lefty on economics. I’d be hard pressed to find anything wrong with his platform if he were a progressive. He has a solid social and foreign policy platform, but his economics are antithetical to my own values. Since economics is my big issue this election, I can’t vote for him. If this were 2008 and I had the values I did then, he would be an easy shoe in, but I can’t really give up on my progressive ideals here. He looks like a MASSIVE improvement over Trump and the rest of the Republican party, but I can’t support him over the democrats or the greens or other left wing parties. Not when we are polar opposites on my number one issue.
Gary Johnson doesn't just want lower taxes, he wants to get rid of income tax, corporate AND capital gains taxes (or at least in the case of the latter, replace it with some untested system) altogether. As with many Libertarians, he loves sales taxes, which are the most unfair/unprogressive and useless form of taxation in my view. What happened to the Geolibertarians who want taxation to focus on property tax? I once had an economics professor who followed that school of thought, and while I thought he was a crank at the time, his ideas actually had a decent amount of merit. Why the Libertarian party doesn't try that angle, I have no idea. Maybe the Green party might try that angle.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that we live in a country in which it is widely agreed that the Greens are insane radicals, not the Libertarian party, which has many ideas not tested in any first-world country.